Sören Claesson

Ove Sören Claesson (born February 9, 1959 in Lidköping ) is a former Swedish wrestler .

Career

Sören Claesson started wrestling at the Linköping Athletes' Club at the age of six. He was highly talented and soon belonged to the best wrestlers in Sweden in the respective age groups in the youth and junior area. He competed in both styles, but mostly focused on the Greco-Roman style in the senior sector at international championships. The coach to whom he owed the greatest progress was Lennart Lundell. Sören was 1.79 m tall and fought mostly middleweight with a body weight of approx. 85 kg. He made his debut on the international wrestling mat in 1979 with a third place at the Junior World Championships in Haparanda in the middleweight, Greco-Roman style. A year later he finished fourth at the European Junior Championships in Oulu . Even back then, he almost exclusively dealt with well-prepared wrestlers from the Eastern Bloc countries, who were able to train under professional conditions and hardly had to worry about their professional future during their sports career.

For this reason, the achievements of the wrestlers from the western states are all the more creditable, who managed to break into the phalanx of the Eastern Bloc wrestlers. Sören Claesson was one of them. At some championships from 1980 to 1985 he landed in the front and with fourth place just missed the medal ranks. But also among the Swedish middleweight wrestlers he had tough competitors, especially Frank Andersson , Leif Andersson , Christer Gulldén and Magnus Fredriksson .

His greatest success was winning the Olympic bronze medal at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles , where he also defeated the 1976 Olympic champion Momir Petkovic from Yugoslavia .

The results of the international championships and some other tournaments in which Sören Claesson participated can be read in the following section.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, F = freestyle, Wed = middleweight, then up to 82 kg body weight)

• 1979, 3rd place , Junior World Championships in Haparanda , GR, Wed, behind Jewgeni Stamow, Bulgaria and Michail Baranow, USSR and in front of Andrzej Malina , Poland , Laszlo Slejher, Yugoslavia and Gheorghe Glonț, Romania ;
• 1980, 4th place , Junior European Championship in Oulu , GR, Wed, behind Ion Draica , Romania , Piotr Winitschenko, USSR and Sandor Kappesz, Hungary and in front of Malina and Kaj Jägersgaard, Denmark ;
• 1980, 6th place , EM in Prievidza , F, Wed, behind Ismail Abilow , Bulgaria, George Kalojew, USSR, Günter Busarello, Austria , Vasile Togonos, Romania and Peter Syring , GDR ,
• 1981, 5th place , tournament in Västerås , GR, Wed, behind Jan Dolgowicz , Poland, Taimuraz Abchazawa , USSR, Kurt Spaniol , FRG and Leif Andersson , Sweden ;
• 1981, 7th place , World Championship in Oslo , GR, Wed, with victories over Ferrydium Behmanpour, Iran and Atushi Izawa, Japan and defeats against Pawel Pawlow , Bulgaria and Gennadi Korban , USSR,
• 1983, 4th place , EM in Budapest , Gr, Mi, behind Abchazawa, Draica and Malina and in front of Gyula Erdely, Hungary and Momir Petkovic , Yugoslavia ;
• 1984, 6th place , EM in Jönköping , GR, Wed, behind Abchazawa, Angel Botschew, Bulgaria, Jarmo Övermark , Finland , Malina and Draica;
• 1984, bronze medal , OS in Los Angeles , GR, Wed, with victories over Dan Chandler , USA , Klaus Mysen , Norway, Mohamed Ashram, Egypt , Luis Santerre, Canada and Momir Petkovic, Yugoslavia and one defeat against Draica;
• 1985, 4th place , World Cup in Kolbotn / Norway, Gr, Mi, behind Bogdan Daras , Poland, Abdoul Batalow, USSR and Klaus Mysen and in front of Övermark and Chris Catalfo, USA

Swedish championships

Sören Claesson became Swedish champion in Greco-Roman style in 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1985 and in free style in 1977, 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1984, always in the middleweight division.

Web links

• Profile of Sören Claesson at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Sören Claesson in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )